ROSEVILLE — They may wear tiaras and sashes, but this isn’t just some beauty pageant.

The women competing to be the Ontario Queen of the Furrow are as lovely as any beauty queen, but they’re not in this muddy field in Roseville just to look good.

These are practical country girls who wear rubber boots with their sparkling earrings. When Tuesday’s downpours turned the International Plowing Match into Waterloo Region’s biggest mud pit, they ditched their umbrellas and pushed cars out of the muck.

On Wednesday, the 33 young women from around Ontario hopped on antique tractors for the plowing portion of their competition, tilling the soil in front of judges looking for imperfections in the churned dirt left behind.

“It’s not a beauty pageant, not by any means,” said 17-year-old Celie Diebold, the Queen of the Furrow for North Dumfries, and the only contestant from this region.

“Some girls are very competitive. Some girls are here for fun, but some girls are here to win.”

To get here, each girl had to win plowing matches in their own regions, and have spent the past year appearing in parades, farm shows and schools to spread the word about agriculture in Ontario.

The young women aren’t tested on their plowing skills alone — they’re also judged on their public speaking, their personality and their knowledge of farming. The winner will be crowned Thursday night and carry the title of Ontario Queen for the next year.

The young women with the tiaras stood out from the crowd Wednesday at the plowing match and rural expo, an annual celebration that dates back nearly 100 years. The weeklong event is part social gathering, part fall fair — complete with tractor dancing, lumberjack shows and traditional barn raisings.

The Queen of the Furrow competition was started by the Ontario Plowmen’s Association in the 1960s as a way to get young women involved in farming. And although plowing itself is a farming technique that is fading in Ontario, the Queens are going strong.

“Back when I won it, we got a car. That doesn’t happen anymore,” said Sharon Grose, who won the title in 1982. “But it’s still an incredible opportunity for these girls.”

For past winners, it’s opened doors to careers in agriculture. For the rest of the girls, it’s fun just being celebrated for the week. They’re put up in a hotel, wined and dined and generally pampered, according to “Queen Mom” Janice Kyle.

“A group of kids saw us and someone shouted ‘Look at the all the princesses!’ ” said Valerie Stone, the Queen of the Furrow from Brant-Six Nations.

“You need some sort of role model in agriculture that is specific to women. I think the Queen of the Furrow program is huge for that.”

Kathryn Chant, an 18-year-old from Leeds County, decided she wanted to be Queen of the Furrow after seeing the girls in their tiaras at a banquet five years ago. Her grandfather, who hosted the international plowing match on his farm in 2007, died in June before seeing her compete in Roseville.

But Chant carries on the family tradition of competitive plowing by using the plow he bought for her older brother. Plowing is just in her blood, she said.

“For most of us, plowing is part of the family. It’s tradition,” said Perth County’s Sara Little, who plowed Wednesday with her father as a coach. “And it’s an art.”